No meltdown for Murray as Scot beats the heat

No meltdown for Murray as Scot beats the heatMelbourne - Pale-skinned Andy Murray cheated the heat on Tuesday at the Australian Open, aided by a brief 45-minute outing as Romanian Andrei Pavel quit their first-round match trailing 6-2, 3-1 with a chronic back injury.

Murray, who lost sensationally in the first round at Melbourne Park a year ago, used the court to his advantage to gain some small respite from temperatures which soared into the high 30s Celsius.

"The good thing about playing on the bigger courts is there's a bit of shade at the back," said the fourth-seeded Scot. "If you go take your towel you can get out of the heat a little bit."

Murray said that even the changeovers provided small comfort. "You're you're expecting to chill out a little bit in the shade, but it's roasting even when you're just sitting there.

"That was tough. And you can feel your feet burning a little bit."

Pavel, 34, is playing with a protected ranking after another flare-up of the back problem he's carried for a decade.

But the old stager who played only three ATP matches in 2008, is hanging on for a retirement at the event in Bucharest later in the year. He did manage a handy payday of more than 10,000 dollars for a first-round loss which did not go anywhere near the distance.

"It's not that I went on the court, thinking of stopping after one set," he said. "That was absolutely not my thinking. I still want to play another three Grand Slams (in 2009).

The Romanian had no remorse for his decision. "Things don't always go like how you plan.

"The back pain is still there. The sun was so bad from one side that I had to turn even more. I felt it again really bad in the second set.

"It just got tighter and tighter. I couldn't go any further, so I guess that was it."

Women's second seed Serena Williams dispatched Yuan Meng of 6-3, 6-2 to open her campaign, but it was more like hard work for Elena Dementieva, winner of titles in her first two events of 2009.

The Russian number four struggled past Kristina Barrois of 7-6 (7-4), 2-6, 6-1, recovering from 1-4 in the first set.

Dementieva preserved an 11-0 record this season after lifting Auckland and Sydney titles five months after winning the Beijing Olympic gold medal.

Kateryna Bondarenko of the Ukraine staged an upset as she put out Polish ninth seed Agnieszka Radwanska 7-6 (7-9), 4-6, 6-1. (dpa)

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